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“The point of citizen Kane is not so much the solution of the problem as its presentation” – Orson Welles
Sixty years ago, a young energetic man, dared to take on a media tycoon who not only influenced but controlled peoples thoughts, opinions and values. This man was Orson Welles; he based his mockumentary on the life of William Randolph Hearst portraying the central character as a man, who was never satisfied emotionally, who longed for his mother love, whose life was determined and dictated by a moment in his childhood. The presentation of the film, in terms of psychoanalysis is rich and layered, never before has a film had so much to say about a mans life.
There are two critical scenes that are shaped around the satirical basis of Hearst . The Boarding House scene and the “News on the March” scene. The News on the March a newsreel, traditionally they are a short film commenting about current events. The use of the Newsreel was to allow the audience at the time to leave their world and to enter the world of dreams as Bates puts it. This created a deeper effect for the audience at the time. As you would all be aware during this time American tycoon Hearst was reigning his power and this movie is a satiric spin of life. Bates also commented the satiric nature of the attack on Hearst; Writing Hearsts private nickname into the film is in part a “good old boys” joke. As you would all know this private nickname was Rosebud. Kane the main character had a fetish to collect anything and everything, as the News on the March demonstrated his immense collections. Why did he collect so many things? Kane wanted love; he grew up with out a maternal figure, a love from a mother. Freud would say that if an individual does not find emotional satisfaction how can this individual mature? Welles is ridiculing Hearst in a way that his childhood was robbed from him, that a man that has everything he wants can never buy his mothers love back. Buying everything and collecting anything was a means for Hearst to find this emotional satisfaction, as so he puts it.
Welles pictures Hearst as a man who knew no one else but himself, who thought love could be bought. This is evident in the scene News on the March. His castle Xanadu was the “Worlds largest private pleasure ground”. Because he grew up with out a nurturing figure, but with a man who chased the dollar, he learned that life was all about indulgences. As with money back in the 1940s came power, this got to his ego, “2 of each the biggest private zoo since Noah” “like the Pharaohs”. The power of Hearst is compared to Noah, meaning that God loved him and only him as the biblical story goes, he drowned the whole world but Noah, because he was the only man of righteous. This is where the humour is played on Hearst, was he really righteous? Also the allusion to the Pharaohs, like the ancient Egyptians rulers were placed in monumental pyramids after death, this refers to the notion that Hearst was afraid of death as mentioned in Bates “Hearsthad an abnormal fear of death”. To ridicule Hearst by alluding to the idea that he lived in a death chamber, a chamber where life has stopped, where he was trapped in his own loveless world as he ever tried to hard to find during his life. It is here that we learn about the life and role of a public figure, how they shape our society by their influences, in this case the influence through the medium of newspaper. To the people of 1940s, this attack on Hearst was seen controversial, Hearsts papers attacked this movie when it was released and as a result the film wasnt recognised until a decade later.
It would be too simple to say that the film was just a mockumentary on Hearst, as I said previously; this film is richly layered with Freudians ideas and psychoanalysis.
The concept of a motherly love refers to Freudians concept of Oedipus. In reasoning with Citizen Kane, the boy Kane (who is meant to be seen as Hearst) is playing the innocently white snow in the Boarding House scene. It is during the phallic stage (fives years old) that a neurosis is initiated that will then lead on to an unconscious desire for a mother love. Before all this, a connection between the mother and child must be established, “Be careful, Charles.